Current and Emergent Situation
India has seen rapid economic growth in the last two
decades. However, as many would argue, India is starkly divided between the
haves and have-nots. The middle and upper middle classes with their new
economic freedoms and modern western worldview are more aligned to and subsumed
in the pot-purée of globalization. At the same time, the bulk of the population
remains excluded from the benefits of rapid economic growth.
Consequently, the country continues to experience
extreme poverty, marginalization, hunger and deprivation much of which is to be
found in rural areas, among tribal people, in dalit and Muslim neighborhoods.
New forms of social exclusion, urban poverty, environmental degradation,
conflict and violence have also emerged in the past decades.
Broadly, there are two emerging and simultaneous
trends:
- The socio-cultural idiom in India is shifting from caste and religion to issues of development and equity. People clamor for a minimum quality of life and a basic level of opportunities. This could be the reason why India has not witnessed communal flare-ups even after events as serious as the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks or the Ram Janmabhumi-Babri Masjid judgments. Most agitations have been about developmental and inclusive growth issues, such as land acquisition, the building of nuclear plants or other environmental threats, which are expected to displace people and endanger their way of life. Even the Naxal question, many would argue, is essentially a developmental question.
- Over the last decade and especially after the economic crisis of 2008, markets, jobs and enterprises are shifting to the east, opening huge opportunities for India to leverage its ‘demographic dividend’. India’s businessmen and industrialists are beginning to recognize that the economic equations are changing, exclusion is not tenable and that fortunes can be made by targeting the ‘bottom of the pyramid, a philosophy well propounded by C. K. Prahalad. The realization is sinking in that growth may well be symbiotic to aligning the rural poor with the economic process both as a contributor (skilled work-force) and as a consumer.
Inclusive growth, hence, is no longer a nice ringing
ideal but an imperative for sustainable growth. It is also being widely
acknowledged that inclusive growth needs inclusive education and that India’s education generally
has not been inclusive. It follows firm structures and rigid qualifications,
which exclude rather than include. India’s education system is exclusive
because:
- It expects people to come to it rather than reaching out to them where ever they are geographically, socially, demographically - which is a discriminatory factor in a country like ours;
- Instead of endorsing a man’s capabilities and contributing to his success and growth, it acts as a label or an entry ticket to where he can and cannot reach in his life. It’s a modern day caste system not much different from the age old scourge in its suffocating rigidity;
- In its self serving snobbery it assumes that education = intelligence = creating ‘value’, an utterly questionable notion since idiots, incompetents, bigots and charlatans are found, perhaps, equally on both sides of the educational divide!
Given above, obviously there is a realization that we
need to rethink the education paradigm.
Recent developments, such as the Right to Education
Act & Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (the free
and compulsory education to all kids between 6-14 years of age has finally been
legislated in the Right To Education (RTE) Act, 2009 and is being implemented
through its flagship program Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan); the National Skills
Development Mission (which promotes skill development through large, quality,
for-profit vocational institutions through a public-private partnership model);
and various initiatives in higher education have sought to increase the impact
and effectiveness of education as a whole.
At the same time, India has seen the entry of the
private sector in education at all levels. Government policy has adopted
various approaches to regulate, limit and at times encourage their involvement.
It is expected that the enhanced investment on
education (public and private) will lead to wider penetration, increased
enrolment and better quality.
All in all, the current situation on education in
India can be described as quite challenging with multi-layered, scattered or
even confused and disjointed conversations abounding in terms of:
§ Access, affordability and
quality
§ Objectives, stakeholders and
influencing factors
§ Content, pedagogy,
methodology
§ Delivery and evaluation
§ Implementation and
effectiveness
It is clear that there
has been no dearth of deep, original and India relevant thought on education.
But before we move into the future, we must raise some inconvenient questions
in self-scrutiny. We have seen that there has been no dearth of ideas and
intention on education front. Yet, the results over the last 66 years have been
less than satisfactory. Why was that? What have we learnt now and what will we
do differently henceforth to expect different results in the future?
Perhaps, some answers could be found, inter alia, in the
areas of a lack of powerful and unifying vision or purpose, conservative and
risk-averse decision-making, indifferent monitoring and a general lack of
accountability during implementation. We might need to be simultaneously
courageous and vigilant going forward…
Purpose of Education
It took me quite a while to realize a basic truth!
Education becomes education only when it has a
purpose. Otherwise it is all learning. And learning is something every human
being possess, whether educated or not (true even for animals!). In fact, we
are in many ways nothing but the sum and substance of our learning. By and
large, all behavior is learnt behavior and all action is a conditioned
response.
Education, on the other hand, is a structured
mechanism to facilitate learning for a purpose. It must provide an opportunity
to examine learnt dysfunctional behaviors and inculcate ability to discard
them, and at the same time, should encourage the possibility of developing new
productive behaviors. It must enhance our ability and resourcefulness to see
and consider alternative possibilities and responses rather than operating in a
linear, automatic and reactionary mode.
Perhaps, then, the purpose of education should be to
anticipate the future and prepare the generations for it, today. However, in a
scenario where the future may not be a mere extrapolation of the past, there is
a strong need for the education itself to be fundamentally transformed… And
that starts by articulating a powerful and unifying vision or purpose.
That being so, what is or should be the purpose of
education in India today? Are current approaches and thinking on education
clear on that purpose and are the efforts and actions aligned to it? If not,
education will serve some purpose but not the one we desire.
There is a lot of talk about equality, empowerment,
inclusion, quality of education, etc. They are no doubt laudable ideals but in
real terms, they are no more than statements of desire or ambition at best.
They are not precise, are prone to multiple interpretations and so are
incapable of aligning and directing a cohesive nationwide effort.
We have to ask ourselves about the vision for
education in the next 20 years. It is obviously a complex ask but a few
pointers might help:
1. A vision for education at the national level must be
inspiring, precise, measurable and understandable by everyone, and such a vision
must be articulated and communicated.
2. The vision must point out clearly what would happen
once it is achieved. The outcome must be worthwhile for people to deploy their
energies into the vision. For example, how exactly will the achievement of this
vision impact one or more of the areas which concern people:
·
Mitigating
corruption
·
Creating value,
wealth and prosperity
·
Poverty
alleviation through better distribution of wealth
·
Better security
for our people from internal and external threats, natural disasters and
diseases
·
Equal
opportunities and social justice for masses
3. It is one thing to say what the country wants to
achieve by educating its people. But it is equally important to ask what the
people are going to get out of educating themselves because otherwise, they
will neither engage with the process nor deploy their energies in it. If more
and more people find it increasingly difficult to eke out a respectable living
or to even keep the body and soul together even as wealth gets concentrated in
a few hands, disenchantment with and rejection of education will ensue.
4. Hence, a clear and powerful vision would neither be a
slogan nor a statistic. It would be a precise and simple statement of intent,
which is measurable and can be accounted for, expressed in terms of benefits to
the people. It will outline the possibility of creation, contribution and
transformation.
It is interesting to note that Macaulay
created a simple and powerful vision in 1835 AD (Indian Education : Part A)
which, when implemented with intent and commitment by the British, continued to
define us as people even after independence. It is time that the ghost of
Macaulay is finally buried after more than 175 years. But for that, we need a
more powerful and inspiring vision to replace it…
But how, who, whence… The vision?
I wonder whether ‘senior educationists’, archaic
bureaucrats and politicians with grey hair and minds still locked in twentieth
century can actually articulate that vision and transform education unless they
first learn to listen to students.
On the other hand, what I know for sure and through
direct experience is that students are almost never involved in any decision
about education even though they are the ones directly affected. Whether it is
about some 4-year undergrad program, or introduction of new syllabi, or
anything of academic importance, for that matter.
It might sound funny but it seems we are interested
in our future and not that of our children. We want to use our kids to fulfill
our needs and purposes, and education becomes our biggest tool for
indoctrination and control.
This might explain why our schools and institutions
reward conformity, compliance and obedience much more than creativity,
curiosity and counter-intuition. The kid who is not easily satisfied and asks
too many questions is obviously such a pain!
And that is where we might be losing the plot… for
ourselves as well as for our kids. Pursuit of myopic, selfish agenda and a
complete lack of any vision!
The Future Must Be Learner Centric
I frequently come across a lot of people from my generation
discussing and lamenting about how we try our best to teach but the ‘current’
generation (read young people of today… when 50% 0f our population is < 25
years of age!)) is unwilling or simply incapable of learning. We may, at times,
go as far as to claim that these guys are a bunch of idiots with fragmented
knowledge, inadequate skills and questionable attitudes!
Some of these observations, in a limited sense, may even be
correct. Yet, the overall conclusion, I am sure is not true. Look at the ease
with which little kids of 4-5 years are learning technology and getting
comfortable with the digital world of social networks, gaming and apps.
Therefore, obviously, ability to learn by itself is not a problem.
The problem is that we don’t like what they learn and they
don’t learn what we like (them to learn)!
And this is because we are still approaching this teaching
learning business from an old mindset. We assume that the kids today learn in
the same ways (or some modifications) in which we used to learn, and get
exasperated when they don’t. The fact is that kids today don’t learn the way we
did.
We learnt from teachers who were the sole reservoir of
knowledge. They learn from Google, You Tube and Wikipedia. We learnt from
parents and elders, from stories and rituals. They learn from friends and
peers, from films and through social networks. We learnt from books and printed
stuff like newspapers, magazines and comics.
They learn from digital, audio-video and interactive media. We learnt
from radio, they learn from TV and internet.
And most important of all – we learnt through instruction
while they want to learn by doing it themselves. They want to learn by
experimentation, engagement, trial and error. They want to learn through
contexts where they control the learning environment and the pace of learning.
What they seem to be saying is – ‘Don’t tell me right and wrong. Let me do it
and figure out myself.’
But we are not listening.
So, when they want freedom and control over learning
environment, we come up with more (often stricter and stupid) norms. When they
are learning less and less from teachers, we sit in our policy chambers
thinking about how to create more teachers. When they are learning from films
and internet, we are thinking on books and arguing on silly cartoons and other
nonsense.
We are simply not listening. Because we think we know what’s
good for them. In all my experience – at policy level interactions on
education, or school managements debating academics or parents discussing
education – I have hardly seen the younger generation invited, involved and
engaged in any meaningful dialogue. Although, what I have seen in some cases,
instead, is to make them sit and tell them what’s wrong with them and how to
fix it!
(Interestingly, this ‘we know what’s good for you’ is a very
interesting phenomenon. This is why educationists don’t listen to students,
companies don’t listen to the customers and governments don’t listen to
citizens!)
We are not listening… And, in the process, we are making
ourselves irrelevant to them… And so they stop listening to us, even become
dismissive of what we have to say or offer (even if it is good at times)… And
we conclude that they are insolent, irreverent, irresponsible, incorrigible
fools! Wow!
I hope, I believe that our young generation is smart!
Smart enough to understand the importance of a good education. But more
importantly, I wish they are clear about their own purpose, which they want to
fulfill through education. If not, their education will still serve some
purpose but then it might not be theirs.
As was, perhaps, the case with our generation years
back...
